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I have decided to write this blog following a significant increase in demand for our Safe Deposit Box service since the beginning of 2015.

At Merrion Vaults, we are constantly meeting clients who have been a victim of a burglary or they know someone who has recently become a victim.

The Irish media have been reporting over the past few weeks on the alarming increase in burglaries in both urban and rural Ireland. RTE’s Prime Time TV Show & RTE’s Joe Duffy radio show have both featured this recent increase in burglaries and interviewed many of the victims. In many cases, family heirlooms that cannot be replaced were taken leaving the families devastated. In addition, most of the victims had cash and other items of jewellery stolen.

What was very clear from these interviews was that criminals are becoming more and more sophisticated when it comes to breaking into properties and locating valuables once they have gained access.

There is a popular misconception that storing your valuables in a home Safe protects these high value items if you are a victim of a burglary. In reality, most home Safes can be breached within 2 minutes. See video link below:

In fact, most thieves can now easily remove the Safe from the property and open it later (even if it is bolted to a wall/floor). You may think that your home Safe is concealed and will never be located by the thieves, however thieves now carry small handheld metal detectors that can locate Safes easily.

What was most interesting in the recent media coverage was how ineffective modern Home Alarm Systems are. Most alarm systems can be immobilized by thieves in the time allocated to enter your PIN number, usually up to 30 seconds. Burglars are now also carrying GSM phone signal blockers (cost €50 online) that cut off any radio/phone signals from your property thus eliminating all possible communications with a remote monitoring security company.

If you contact your local Garda Station, the above facts can be verified.

In reality, the only secure way to store valuables that you do not need access to on a daily basis is by storing them in a purpose-built facility outside of the home. A Safe Deposit Box in a purpose built vault is an ideal solution for storing Cash, Jewellery, Family Heirlooms, Irreplaceable Items, Gold & Silver Bullion, Title Deeds, Wills, Spare Car Keys, Memory Sticks, Photographs and many other items of value.

By storing these valuables out of the home you will also benefit from lower Home Contents Insurance premiums.

At Skarbiec Gdańsk, we offer Safe Deposit Boxes in our vaults from less than €4 per week.

A recent survey by Liberty Insurance has shown some interesting facts about Irish homeowners and their security habits. The study carried out by Millward Brown on behalf of Liberty Insurance shows that a huge number of homeowners in Ireland have a very lax attitude to home security.

Some of the most telling facts and numbers to come from the survey are:

47% of people don’t have a house alarm – with only 1 in 3 who do using it regularly

23% of Dublin homeowners are likely to leave doors unlocked

22% of people rely on neighbours to watch their home

17% of people don’t lock their front door

1 in 3 people feel relaxed leaving their home unattended

With most burglaries being opportunistic crimes as opposed to planned crimes, the figures above are a stark reminder that home security should be paramount in homeowners minds, but often this is obviously not the case. With this in mind the simple 3-word message which can help you keep your home secure is:
CHECK – LOCK – LEAVE.

To keep your valuables completely safe & secure renting a safe deposit box is also a good idea. At Merrion Vaults you can rent your own private safe deposit box with access 7 days a week from less than €4 per week.
Call Merrion Vaults today on: (01) 254 7900 or go to www.MerrionVaults.ie

Although the security advantages to renting your own safe deposit box are plain to see, people often do not realise the many financial benefits to keeping your valuables in a safe deposit box.

The first financial advantage that should be explored when you rent a box is on your home insurance. If you have ‘specified items’ on your home insurance, such as expensive jewellery items, you should investigate the option of keeping these items in your safe deposit box and therefore removing them from your ‘specified items’ on your home insurance. In a lot of cases this will reduce your home insurance by more than the cost of the safe deposit box. But what about insurance cover when the items are being worn?

There are insurance companies who will provide you with a ‘wear-only’ policy for items of jewellery – usually a small fraction of the cost of keeping items on a home insurance ‘specified items’ policy. Even after taking a standalone ‘wear-only’ policy, and renting a safe deposit box to keep the jewellery in, the savings usually amount to more than the cost of renting the safe deposit box.

Another money-saving feature is the fact that any paperwork you keep in your box will be safe and secure – this negates the need to ever pay to have documents replaced or re-issued. Paperwork like Title-deeds can be very expensive to replace if lot or stolen, oftentimes costing thousands of Euro (and a lot of ‘red-tape’) to replace. Car registration documents, Birth-certs, passports, Life insurance/assurance policies, these can all be costly and time-consuming to replace. Once you have your own safe deposit box, and keep your important documents there, you can be sure that any important paperwork you need is in one place – your safe deposit box.

In renting a safe deposit box you are not only giving yourself ‘peace of mind’, with the knowledge that important and irreplaceable items are safe and secure – But with a little bit of knowledge and by making some phonecalls you can easily save yourself money and hassle down-the-line.

There are numerous reasons why a Safe Deposit Box makes good sense, but a lot of people are not sure whether they actually need one or not. The simple answer is – if you have any valuables that you want to keep completely safe and secure – then yes – you do need a safe deposit box.

If you have any items that you consider irreplaceable, such as sentimental items or even paperwork that would be difficult to replace (Title Deeds etc.) the only way to keep these items truly safe & secure is in your own private safe deposit box and out of your home.

A lot of people don’t realize that you can rent your own safe deposit box with Merrion Vaults from as little as €199 per year – with 7 day access….that’s less than €4 per week.

Another advantage to having a safe deposit box is you know anything important to you is in one place, and not scattered about your home in different drawers or cupboards.

Security experts and even the Gardai will advise homeowners against having a home safe placed in their home, as not only will burglars always tend to find the safe but in some instances, if they can’t get immediate access to the safe it then becomes a dangerous ‘goal’ for them to come back to when you may be at home.

In a lot of instances you can also save money on home insurance by renting your own safe deposit box, therefore keeping any high-value items out of your home and off the ‘specified items’ list on your home insurance.

With 6 day access at SKarbiec Gdańsk it makes perfect sense to rent a safe deposit box and give you and your family ‘peace of mind’.